Mittasch could not solve the problem of catalysis for the realm of the social sciences.
The normative and intentional nature of the latter calls for the higher—cultural—
catalytic systems to be conceptualized.
The crucial feature of the phenomena in the social sciences is the flexibility.
Our intentional coordination of conditions of personal and collective cultures (Valsiner, 2014) with social representations in society is a feature absent at the lower levels of catalysis. This is made possible for the use of sign systems at various levels—personal, communal, societal, economic, and political. We can look at human phenomena as semiotically catalyzed. Semiotically,
Meaning appears only due to a contact between code relations. A contact between (incompatible) codes which activates semiosis, requires a living system. This is because semiosis assumes a mechanism of learning, i.e. a mechanism that can create new codes (therefore to restore and to reproduce) which is just a feature of the living systems. (Kull, 2014, p. 118)
We produce (and reproduce) sign complexes that catalyze our ways of being human.
This is possible due to the double function of signs we create and use, as we operate with signs on the constantly moving border of the PRESENT in between the FUTURE and the PAST. The primary function of a sign is to grant the meanings of action in here and now. The secondary function of the sign is to provide hyper- generalized meaning field for the future—to be utilized at any moment of need to put into place a catalytic condition.
Fig. 8.9 The pyramid of catalytic processes (Alwin Mittasch, 1938)
J. Valsiner
A number of interesting features emerge from the notion of double functions of signs. First, the human meaning making in the present is oriented to the future—
immediate (here and now giving meaning to the unfolding experience) and indeter- minate—setting up anticipatory meaning orientation for possible future conditions (de Mattos, 2018). It is the latter that produce the basis for semiotic catalysts.
Figure 8.11 also illustrates the aboutness of the future and the meaning-based borders that semiotic catalysis enables to get introduced. The border between the desired and the non-desired directions (both characterized as zones with non-fixed outer borders) is enabled by the process of hyper-generalized signs. As Alaric Kohler has pointed out,
Catalysts operate by removing or replacing a constraint on variability. (Kohler, 2014, p. 69) Fig. 8.10 Semiotic catalysis (reconstruction of the Mittasch Pyramid)
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Thus, the indeterminacy of the future is precisely the reason for creating catalytic conditions for future events long before they are on the psychological horizon:
The psychological horizon is the infinite realm of possibilities ahead of time yet to be semio- tized, thus still partially socially unbounded, that is necessary as a reference point to the person’s widening of life space. The horizon/sign is the specific sign that, once produced, establishes the conditions for the psychological horizon to participate in the production of new psychological phenomena through the co-regulation of psychological processes.
(Tateo, 2014, p. 236)
Here we come to the central issue of all social sciences—handling of the transition of the concreteness of the present toward the inevitably uncertain future. The notion of forward-oriented semiotic catalysis here has theoretical advantages over strict sign-regulated control that becomes possible in the present moment (S in Fig. 8.11).
Guiding the Semiotic Catalytic Roles in the Future The presence of a hyper- generalized sign field as a catalyst projected into the future has the flexibility to be usable in a particular direction when the semiotic agent (person, institution, etc.) needs it. Yet such catalytic fields for the future need to be established in the here- and- now setting. Da Silva (2014) introduced the notion of semiotic catalyst activa- tor—a sign that in the present guides the establishment of the catalytic sign field for the future. Through such activators the future field of semiotic catalysts is directed in desired or expected directions, such as moral self-expectations (Nedergaard, Valsiner, & Marsico, 2015), sensual-religious feelings of temple dancers (Valsiner, 1996), or the hyper-generalized expectation for social revela- tions of guilt within a civil society (Brinkmann, 2010) or of violence within family (Musaeus & Brinkmann, 2011). The outcomes of such activators are creating meaning- construction atmospheres within a given person or society. Phenomena of witch- hunting, suspicions of espionage by foreigners, expectations for physical and sexual violence from different socially stigmatized outgroups, and much more—all the histories of human societies—are filled with examples of the work of semiotic catalyst activators.
The semiotic catalyst activator signs are activated by the sign maker to guarantee that not every hyper-generalized sign takes on catalytic functions. These are meta- level
Fig. 8.11 Making of catalysts through double function of signs
J. Valsiner
signs that act upon the directions of field-like signs to guide them either into becoming promoter signs (directly impacting on the meaning construction) or catalytic frames (enabling the work of other promoter signs). A single case example of how a young US college student following at first his father’s White supremacist ideology not only overcomes it (negates the inherent racism in society) but develops a new per- sonal life course crossing the race lines in his own marrying life (see Mascolo, 2017, for full description).
Two specific features in the transition of the young White supremacist into a flex- ible human being who succumbs to the affective attraction across race borders are relevant here to see the semiotic catalyst activator in action. First is the “base line”
of deeply embodied interracial feelings of negative kind—not directly expressed. In fact he was socialized to keep his feelings toward other races strictly under personal control. The young man recalled only one different episode—when he was on a wrestling for extra sports credit in high school:
The only time I got to release my frustration was when I wrestled—especially those Blacks in competition extra curriculum activities at school. I thought about my people and what their people were doing to mine. And I was satisfied at the sound and sight of making their face hit the mat and if I was lucky, drawing blood. Afterward I would run for the shower wiping away the filth of the disgusting contact and scent scrubbing vigorously for almost an hour. They were one and the same and not my people I can give a damn about them.
(Mascolo, 2017, p. 232 added emphasis)
The deep—yet externally invisible—interracial separation and dismissal were in place as a result of polite socialization. The opposition “we” <> “they” was the main guidance of relating with others. Yet the strong opposition coming from family socialization had a potential for transformation—through the curiosity of the young man trying to get the glimpse of the “other,” even if staying on one’s own estab- lished ideological position. It took slowly developing affective innovation for the young man to transcend that position.
Love has been powerful in making changes in our mundane ways of living possible.
While in college, circumstances brought the young man into joint study task with a Black girl—step by step moving toward deep personal relationship. Again the pre- established internalized dismissal of the other was in place as he tried to avoid the joint assignments and verbal challenges (“go to your people”, ibid., p. 233). Yet the joint work did build an attraction (and decision that “she was an exception to her people”).
While this slow un-racializing interpersonal process was going on, an encounter with a Black male student whom he despised yet became curious about his capacity to enter into interaction with others. Our supremacist decided “to play liberal”:
“Hey man why are you always talking to White girls?” He looked at me conspicuously … He responded “Well it don’t look like I got many options at this school. Say man, you wanna give me a hand with this box?". On another day I would have obviously said “hell no” but I needed more answers “Why do you get along with White people?” “Huh?” “You have nothing in common with them… us” I replied calmly. He let out a slight chuckle before replying, “Sure we do, we usually like to have fun and play and watch sports. I mean what has race have to do with getting’ along with people?” I gave no expression not wanting to admit that he had actually made a bit of a point. And even though he was a Black basketball player he was not as dumb as I thought he would be. (Mascolo, 2017, pp. 234–235, added emphasis)
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This episode is an example of the agent’s (“supremacist”) move toward creating a semiotic catalyst activator that would enable him to accept the other race in princi- ple—when his own immediate interaction benefitted from it. The simple doubt (“what has race to do with it?”) that produced the “bit of a point” actually led to overcoming of the strict stigmatization “my people” <> “your people” and creating an atmosphere of personal acceptance of openness. It is through regulating the nature of background atmospheres that social systems set the stage for all of the normatively possible and impossible actions—as well as their change.
Cases of structural transformations of normatively regulated developing systems lead to the need for the adoption of new formalizing systems for the social sciences.
The axioms of the general linear model do not fit the tensions in linearizing <> cur- vilinearizing social and psychological processes. New formal models of nonquanti- tative mathematics are likely to innovate the social sciences. For example, topological innovations allow for making sense of the phenomena of borders in human minds and activities. Borders—in biological sense membranes—play cru- cial role in all systemic perspectives. New methodologies of the study of mainte- nance and transformation of social borders at all levels—psychological, sociological, economic, and political—are the next horizon toward which the philosophy of social sciences can strive.